64bit Natty and Intel Sandy Bridge (ThinkPad T420)

[mejo]

I'm experiencing the same freezes. What kernel modules do you have loaded? I'm pretty sure this has to do with pluggin the computer into power or off power. If you didn't do it and still get those freezes, I believe it's because the thinkpad's power connector is a little bit flaky. It sometimes disconnects by itself and reconnects immediately (happened to me a couple of times.)

Try this:

http://www.robertbeal.com/1248/ubunt...-battery-power

I used this for another laptop. Going to try on my thinkpad

Thanks for sharing your experiences. I don't think that the freezes I discovered are related to power issues, but I'll keep an eye on it. Actually I plug and unplug the power connector very often while the laptop is running, and didn't ever discover a freeze while doing that. Thus I doubt that my freezes are related to power connector issues.

The good news is, that I didn't have hard freezes in the last two weeks at all. Not sure whether this is related to the kernel update (running 2.6.38-11.50). If the freezes ever happen again, I'll consider to try the workarounds from your link.

[ultimatebuster]

Thanks for sharing your experiences. I don't think that the freezes I discovered are related to power issues, but I'll keep an eye on it. Actually I plug and unplug the power connector very often while the laptop is running, and didn't ever discover a freeze while doing that. Thus I doubt that my freezes are related to power connector issues.

The good news is, that I didn't have hard freezes in the last two weeks at all. Not sure whether this is related to the kernel update (running 2.6.38-11.50). If the freezes ever happen again, I'll consider to try the workarounds from your link.

Don't bother. I don't think it works as it seems unrelated.

Also are you experiencing issues with unpluggin VGA? I get hard freezes via that as well.

[mejo]

Also are you experiencing issues with unpluggin VGA? I get hard freezes via that as well.

No, I don't use external monitors yet either. Up to now I'm not able to connect the hard freezes to a special task or action. They happened while listening to music with banshee or while browsing the internet with firefox.

I'll give the docking station a try soon, let's see whether I discover hard freezes there as well. Last time I tried, the output of external monitor was flawed, and USB keyboard over docking station didn't work either. I'm curious whether that changed, as I'd like to use external keyboard/monitor/mouse.

[ultimatebuster]

Quick tip: If you unplug the VGA and your desktop is black with only the mouse movable. close the lid to put the laptop to sleep and open it back up. That solves it.

[mejo]

I added a new thread about the T420 with docking station here: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=11313961

[mejo]

After running 64bit Natty on a ThinkPad T420 with integrated i915 graphics for some time, I'll try to summarize my experiences and list solutions as well as issues that still do exist.

Now that I upgraded to Ubuntu 11.10 Oneiric Ocelot, I'll share my experiences again. First I have to say that all in all the upgrade went pretty smoothly. Below is a summary of the issues that one needs to address manually:

• While the auto modus for the fan seems to work much better in Oneiric, thinkfan didn't run after the upgrade. This is due to changed paths to temperature sensors. For me the coretemp paths changed from /sys/devices/platform/coretemp.X/temp1_input to /sys/devices/platform/coretemp.0/tempX_input, X being ascending diggits.
• The HDAPS driver needs to be patched again, due to a bug in tp_smapi.
• Several power regressions in newer kernels can (at least partly) be addressed by adding the boot options "pcie_aspm=force" and "i915.i915_enable_rc6=1" to GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT in /etc/default/grub.
• Setting 'model=thinkpad' for snd-hda-intel module as described here enabled microphone/line in and headphone/line out connectors of the docking station.

The following issues have been addressed in Oneiric and are fixed:

• Issues with external monitor and docking station: described here

This leaves the follwing things that still don't work in Oneiric:

• Issues with the graphics mode when switching between docked and undocked state with running system.
• The microphone mute key is not working: bugreport

[JurB]

Several power regressions in newer kernels can (at least partly) be addressed by adding the boot options "pcie_aspm=force" and "i915.i915_enable_rc6=1" to GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT in /etc/default/grub.

That seems to help, i now get 16-17w in powertop (was 24-25W), temperatures are 45-50°C (was 50-55°C). It did mess up conky, battery-time now shows "unknown".

The microphone mute key is not working: bugreport

Weird, mine work just fine...

[mejo]

The microphone mute key is not working: bugreport

Weird, mine work just fine...

You're sure that your _microphone_ mute key works? It really mutes the microphone? Or are you talking about your audio output mute key?

[JurB]

You're sure that your _microphone_ mute key works? It really mutes the microphone? Or are you talking about your audio output mute key?

My bad, i meant audio output...

[amdemas]

For audio out and mic for when docked

Try adding this line

options snd-hda-intel model=thinkpad

to /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base.conf

to the bottom of the list of options.



Then reboot.

It worked for me with t420s.

I am having an issue with the fan noise still and have tried thinkfan but cant get it....any help?